A roller conveyor system may include multiple zones of rollers, with each zone including multiple rollers. Each zone or set of rollers includes a self-driven or powered or motorized roller that rotatably drives the idler rollers of the respective zone. The driving or motorized roller is operable to rotatably drive the other rollers, such as via O-rings or the like around adjacent rollers. When the driving roller is activated, the rollers function to convey articles along the conveyor zones. The zones are arranged along a conveying path such that articles conveyed along one zone are conveyed onto a next adjacent or downstream zone and so on along the conveying path.
The zones may comprise separate sections having opposite sidewalls to which the respective rollers are mounted. When the conveyor system is designed and installed, the zones or sections are laid out so that the appropriate length zones or sections are positioned to generally abut against the adjacent zones or sections, so as to provide a substantially continuous conveying surface along the conveyor. If a specified zone or section does not fit in a gap between two sections, a new zone must be ordered or made (such as by manufacturing sidewalls of the specified length or cutting down a longer zone to meet the specified length) that will fit within the gap to complete the conveyor system. Thus, it can be very costly and/or labor intensive to adjust a size of a conveyor zone or section during planning and installation of a conveying system.